OP, here's a perspective you won't often hear but is worth considering.
The reality is that a lot of people don't ever get that first GA job and even those that do, many (myself included) walked away from the industry after 12 months of working. Things may have changed in recent years (I doubt it), but it was a bad enough experience for me to entirely bin my emotional, financial and time investment in aviation and to then do a further 4 years of study to change my career path entirely.
As others have mentioned it's not all to do with the operators either, GA pilots were for the most part backstabbers who would climb over anybody else for progression and the small town culture was a cesspool.
If I had my time again, I would have just paid the dollars and went the cadet path from day one. Everyone I knew who did this at the time, the closest any come to GA was a stint as safety pilot on a metro and were all fast tracked to a RHS turboprop or jet job.
Sometimes I get the itch, especially when I hear 'pilot shortage', but then I come back here for a reminder that nothing has really changed...